Feeding Bees
Introduction
The natural food of the honeybee colony comes from the nectar and
pollen that the workers collect and bring back to the hive, either for
immediate use or for storing in the cells of the combs. In this country
there is normally sufficient pollen for the needs of the colony.
Bees cannot live on pollen alone and there are times when the
beekeeper must provide a substitute for nectar to prevent immediate
starvation or to ensure sufficient stores normally for the winter and early
spring but also at other times of the year and even in the summer.
This operation is known as ‘feeding’, which means giving the worker
bees access to a supply of suitable food placed in a suitable container.
A suitable food for this purpose is sugar syrup or inverted sugar, and the
container in which it is placed is known as a feeder. Food accepted by
bees is either eaten or stored, if it is stored, it may be eaten
subsequently or transferred to other cells. If the brood combs of an
expanding stock contain large amounts of stored syrup and nectar is
coming in, then the beekeeper faces a particularly big risk that syrup will
be moved up into honey storing supers.
Feeders
Most feeders are designed either to be placed over a feedhole in the
inner cover of the hive (the crown board) or to replace the inner cover
while feeding is in progress.
‘Slow’ feeders allow only a few bees at a time to have access to the
syrup; ‘rapid’ feeders give ready access to larger numbers of bees.
Rapid feeders
There are several types of rapid feeder available on the market.
For placing over the feedhole, there is the round metal or plastic
container and lid, with a tube passing through the centre from below to
give the bees access to the syrup. The tube is surrounded by a guard
to prevent the bees from drowning in the syrup. It also prevents bees
escaping when the lid of the feeder is removed. Various sizes are
obtainable, holding from about 1-7 litres.
For fitting temporarily in place of the inner cover, there are the large
rectangular or square feeders constructed of wood, proofed with wax
or bitumen paint. You should ensure that you have the right size of
feeder for your specific hive. Most models have a device to prevent
the bees drowning, which in some types is adjustable to allow the
beekeeper to control the size of the passage through which the bees
have access to the syrup.
Contact feeders
A very simple and satisfactory feeder can be made from a 7 or 14lb
honey lever lid tin or food grade plastic bucket. The lid should be placed
with its inner side upwards on a block of wood smaller than the
diameter of the lid and deeper than its flange (to avoid buckling and
ensure that the lid retains its good fit on the container), and a group of
20-25 fine holes should be punched in it, the holes kept within a circle
of about 60 mm diameter. A small nail (of the type used for pinning the
joints of frames) makes a hole of the right size.
This type of feeder is also available commercially being a plastic honey
bucket with a small area of gauze mesh in the centre of the lid.
The container is filled with syrup and the lid pressed firmly in place.
The feeder, inverted over the feedhole, is then ready for use. A small
quantity of syrup will run out of the holes until a partial vacuum is formed
above the level of the contents. To avoid wasting this by spilling it over
the hive, it is best to hold the feeder over a pail for a few moments
before setting it down carefully over the feedhole. The container should
always be filled right up to the level of the lid to reduce this initial drip of
syrup to a minimum. The hive should, of course, stand firmly on a
level base.
All these types of feeder must be enclosed in additional empty brood
boxes or supers.
Frame feeders
Frame feeders are ideal for small colonies housed in a nucleus but also
are often used in full strength colonies. They are made to hang inside the
brood box and replace one of the frames.
Making syrup
Only refined white granulated sugar should be used for making syrup.
For autumn feeding, thick syrup is advisable, made by adding 8 kg of
sugar to 5 litres of hot water and stirring until all the sugar is dissolved.
This gives a concentration of 62 per cent sugar by weight. A thick syrup
can also be made very simply, without the use of weights or measures,
as follows:
Place all the sugar into a vessel of suitable size; shake it down to an
even surface and mark the level at which it stands. Pour in hot water,
stirring as the sugar dissolves, and fill up until the liquid reaches just
above the mark at which the dry sugar stood. Continue the stirring until
the sugar is completely dissolved.
It is wasteful to feed syrup containing undissolved sugar, because the
bees cannot take crystals that settle at the bottom of a feeder and if an
inverted contact feeder is used, the crystals may clog the holes
completely. There is, however, no need to waste fuel or risk burning the
sugar by boiling the syrup; using either of the above methods a
complete solution can be achieved by stirring alone – and less cooling is
needed before the syrup is ready for use.
For spring feeding a more dilute syrup may be used, made by adding
4 kg sugar to 5 litres of water. This has the advantage of saving the bees
many trips to collect water to reduce the strength of the syrup before
feeding it to the brood.
Autumn feeding
When preparations are being made for removing the honey crop after
the end of the main nectar-flow, each colony should be examined to see
how much honey and pollen is present in the brood combs. In some
seasons, the bees stock the brood combs with honey before they fill
the supers. In others, nearly all the honey may be stored in the supers,
leaving the brood combs practically empty; so it should never be
assumed that if the supers are well filled, there is necessarily enough
food in the brood chamber to maintain the colony during the winter
and spring.
Well before winter sets in a colony needs to have 16-18Kg of stores
sealed in the combs. The object of autumn feeding is to supply the
amount of sugar syrup necessary to bring the total amount of stores
up to at least this minimum.
In estimating the amount of stores present in the hives, a British
Standard deep comb, well filled on both sides, can be taken to contain
2 kg; a shallow comb 1.4 kg. The weight of supplementary stores
given in the form of sugar syrup should be reckoned as the weight of the
sugar in the syrup and not as the total weight of the sugar plus the
water. Syrup is fed during the latter part of September. If it is given
earlier, an excessive amount of the syrup may be used for rearing brood,
with the result that there will be less food stored in the combs and more
bees to be maintained. If it is fed later, the weather may become too
cold for the bees to carry the syrup down, ripen it and seal it over.
Syrup left unsealed may ferment in the combs and cause dysentery in
bees that consume it. Syrup for autumn feeding should always be fed
in a rapid feeder. This should be large enough to hold the whole amount
needed to supplement the natural stores, so that the bees can
take it down quickly and without interruption. Thick syrup fed rapidly in
the second half of September, produces the maximum amount of
sealed stores per kg of sugar used.
Autumn feeding may sometimes be advisable even when the colony
already has an ample supply of honey.
Pollen
Pollen is preserved and sealed over by the bees to keep it in good
condition throughout the winter and forms an essential part of the stock
of food needed for brood rearing in the early spring. Pollen that remains
unsealed in the autumn becomes mouldy and turns into hard pellets,
which the bees can remove only by tearing down the cell walls.
They usually rebuild the damaged comb into drone cells, so that
unsealed pollen in the autumn is often the cause of a spoilt comb in the
following spring. If, when the last brood-nest inspection of the season
is made, it is found that the bees have plenty of sealed honey but do
not seem to be sealing the pollen a few litres of syrup should be given.
This will enable them to complete the preparation of their food supply
for the winter. Usually there is no actual shortage of pollen in the
brood-nest but occasionally colonies may be found with combs
containing little or no pollen, whereas others in the same apiary may
have more than they need. Provided there is no disease in the apiary,
combs of pollen may be taken from those colonies able to spare them
and given to those that are deficient.
Such combs should always be put on the flanks of the brood-nest and
never between combs containing brood. Three or four good combs of
pollen should be present in each colony.
Heather Honey
Colonies that have been taken to the heather may come back with
brood chambers full of heather honey. As a winter food for bees,
heather honey is sometimes unsuitable, causing digestive trouble and
dysentery. Some beekeepers remove a couple of the combs of honey,
those nearest the centre on each side, and replace them with empty
drawn combs.
Syrup is then given in a rapid feeder. The bees will fill the two empty
combs with syrup and the stores in these combs will be used first as
winter food. The heather honey will be used later when brood-rearing
starts, for which purpose it is satisfactory.
Spring feeding
Spring feeding with thin syrup was once regarded as a necessary part
of the routine management of bees but it is likely that much of the
success attributed to it was due more to the water in the syrup than to
the sugar. In the absence of fresh nectar, which in itself contains enough
water for the purpose, the bees must find water to dilute sealed stores.
A suitable source of water should be provided in the form of a ‘drinking
fountain’, placed 10 metres or so from the hives, in a sheltered position
warmed by the spring sunshine.
Nevertheless, it is sometimes desirable to encourage a colony to build
up more rapidly than it would if left to its own devices – for example, a
colony, which is to be used later on for queen rearing, or one that is to
be split up for making increase. Provided it has ample stores of pollen
for the needs of an expanding brood-nest, such a colony may be fed by
giving small quantities of syrup in a contact feeder at regular intervals,
(taping over most of the holes in the feeder lid will slow down the rate
of feeding) from mid-March or early April until the bees can forage
freely for themselves.
Candy
Routine spring feeding is unnecessary for colonies intended solely for
honey production. In the autumn they should be given enough food to
see them safely through the winter and spring. A mild, wet winter may
necessitate a mid or late winter-feeding of ‘candy’ or fondant to prevent
the bees from starving. It should be borne in mind that feeding candy
causes the bees to carry out many more flights to collect water to dilute
the candy.
Feeding a swarm
Bees in a swarm take a supply of honey with them when they issue from
the parent colony, but if the weather turns bad soon after the swarm
is hived, it will be necessary to feed syrup in a rapid feeder so that the
bees can maintain themselves until the weather improves.
Swarms should not be fed for the first three or four days. The honey
being carried by the swarm may be diseased and should be used to
build comb. If the swarm is hived on frames fitted with a wax foundation
the bees have to produce a large amount of wax to draw the foundation
out into comb. Even in good weather additional food in the form of a
gallon of syrup will help the new colony to establish itself.
Feeding a nucleus
A nucleus (a small colony of 2 to 5 combs of bees made up from a
strong colony) has very few bees of foraging age and, therefore, needs
to be kept supplied with food by the beekeeper. If combs of honey
cannot be given it will be necessary to supply syrup in a contact or a
frame feeder. To reduce the risk of robbing, newly made nuclei
remaining within flight range of the parent stock should not be fed for
the first 3 days.
Estimating the consumption of
stores
If care has been taken in the autumn to see that each colony is well
provisioned with honey and pollen (supplemented if necessary with
sugar syrup) the bees will not run short of food during the winter and
early spring. It is, however, easy to determine the approximate amount
of stores left at any time during this period by using a spring balance
capable of weighing up to half the total weight of the hive.
The balance is first hooked under one side of the floor and lifted until the
hive is tilted just clear of its base. The operation is repeated by hooking
the balance under the floor on the opposite side. The weight of the hive
is the sum of the two observed weights, even if the contents of the hive
are not uniformly distributed. Reading the dial of the balance is made
easier if a chain extension is used to bring the balance up to eye level.
The weight of the hive should be recorded after feeding is finished in the
autumn. Check weighing taken later on can then be compared with
this figure.
When all the hives in an apiary are of the same pattern, the approximate
weight of the stores in each hive can be calculated if the weights of the
various hive parts (including empty drawn combs) previously recorded
for reference plus a constant amount of, say 5-6 kg to allow for the bees,
brood and pollen, are subtracted from the total weight (according to the
number of brood-chambers, supers, lifts, in use on the hive during
the winter).
As experience is gained, the ‘feel’ of a hive obtained by gently lifting it by
hand, first on one side and then on the other, can give a reasonably
reliable estimate of the state of affairs within.
Emergency feeding
It is a good rule never to allow the amount of stores to fall below 5 kg.
Rules cannot always be kept, however, and if a colony does run short
of stores it must be fed to carry it over the emergency. If the weight or
‘feel’ of a hive in late winter or early spring raises any doubts about the
amount of stores left for the bees, the colony should at once be given
warm, thick sugar syrup, in a contact feeder so that the bees can take
the syrup readily without having to move far from the cluster.
Sugar candy or fondant is a handy form of supplementary food for use
in spring, as it is an insurance against starvation if the amount of food
left in the combs is thought to be inadequate to meet the increasing rate
of consumption at this time of year. It can be obtained ready-made in
cakes or blocks for placing over the feedhole. Candy should not,
however, be used as a food for over-wintering colonies in place of sugar
syrup fed in September.
If the bees are forced to rely upon having continuous access to candy
placed over the feedhole in the autumn, and left there throughout the
winter, they will be working at it actively during this period instead of
clustering quietly on the combs below. Furthermore, the candy
willabsorb moisture from the atmosphere of the hive and its water
content will increase. The end result may then be an acute dysenteric
condition among the bees, with possibly fatal consequences for the
whole colony, due to an excessive accumulation of waste products in
the bees’ digestive system.
Honey should not be fed back to bees: It causes great excitement in
the colony and is liable to induce outbreaks of robbing. Invert sugar
candies made by inversion with the enzyme invertase are suitable for
bees. Feeding in this way should be regarded strictly as an emergency
measure and should be followed at once by a feed of thick sugar syrup
given in a rapid feeder. In a bad season colonies may run so short of
stores, even during the summer, that feeding with syrup in a rapid
feeder is necessary to prevent starvation.
Colonies, strong in brood and bees, can very quickly eat up their
reserves if there is a scarcity of nectar for any length of time. As an
emergency measure, if the bees are found to be in a drowsy condition –
a result of the complete exhaustion of their stores – they can sometimes
be revived if warm syrup is sprinkled down between the combs or lightly
sprayed over the bees using a hand sprayer; syrup in a rapid feeder
should be given as soon as the bees have recovered sufficiently to
take it.
Precautions
Giving syrup in a feeder always causes excitement in a colony, at least
temporarily; if this occurs during the daytime, bees flying around in
search of food can soon start an outbreak of robbing, particularly in the
autumn when there are strong forces of bees of foraging age and little or
no nectar for them to collect.
All the hive entrances should be reduced to a width of 25-50 mm,
depending upon the strength of the colonies before any feeding is
started and the hives should be examined carefully to make certain that
there are no gaps between the various parts through which robber bees,
or wasps, could find their way. The syrup should not be given until the
evening, when there will be fewer flying bees to cause a disturbance in
the apiary.
Similarly, feeders that need to be refilled, should be replenished in the
evening rather than during the day-time.
ISBN 978 0 7504 5062 1
© Crown copyright March 2009
CMK-22-01-153
D6930809
Leaflet 412
Revised and reprinted 2009.